05-05-2011, 02:51 PM
Hi,
Thanks Alan; you are welcome any time and don't worry it's not a hard hat area. The health and safety lot in this country are now doing more harm than good and are just a joke. When Bron and I visited the chimney manufacturers we parked the car and notices informed us to book in at reception as we were no longer allowed to wander around without an escort; after booking in we were issued with high visibility jackets and had to accompany a staff member as we looked around. This to us is shutting industry down as we will now only visit such places when absolutely necessary. The local scrapyard where I obtained my 3 phase scrap transformer go even further; I've bought a high visibility coat and hard hat for when I visit the site which is no longer often as I can't be bothered with all the safety rules.
Thanks Jamie we don't have a local "Focus" and I'm not surprised they are winding down. The only growth industry around here are fast food outlets and erection of speed cameras.
Well done Jeremy; it's good to hear you are tackling an assortment of jobs around home and hopefully you will become familiar with mortar and plaster as the need arises. I do every repair around home with the exception of our rubbish central heating boiler. At three years old it sprang a leak in the middle of winter when it was freezing cold a couple of years ago. I replaced the pump costing £90 but then it started to pop other leaks and I couldn't keep up with it so after many hours called in British Gas and the engineer was with us three days on the trot trying to get on top of the many problems. This boiler is now the only thing we have insured other than the car; I hate plumbing jobs mid winter!! I too have plenty of work to do in the gardens and have felled a number of large trees over the years we have lived here; it upset me a couple of years ago as I had to ask a tree surgeon to remove the top 40' from one of our trees as the branches were too thin to bear my weight; the tree surgeon brought along his 40' long ladder. Normally I would have simply climbed the tree and done the job myself.
Thanks David; yes the chimney pot was dirt cheap and I took a lot of care to bed it neatly with concrete as it is such a focal point to our bungalow. I agree the TV chassis will have to wait until I can get around to spending time working on it. I can't believe the weather so far this year; we've suffered the worst winter ever recorded but over the last two weeks the weather has been beautiful; cold on a morning but lovely in the afternoons and what a contrast to last year when I must have been having my dinner when summer visited us because I totally missed it. I'm making the most of this gorgeous weather because once it starts to rain it doesn't know when to stop.
I do lots of big jobs around home and all the 34 years I've been married have done at least one big job per year planning the work beforehand. When I retired I decided to make access to our bungalow easier as we have a flight of steps up one side and the other side had nine steps with a sloping path. I decided to get rid of the nine steps; there were three by the garage; three at the end of the path then we would walk along a narrow path to the rear of the bungalow and drop down three steps.
The first year I dug out by hand to the rear of the bungalow creating a new patio area together with a new path; the following year I dug out by hand to the side of the bungalow installing a long ramp. Digging out was incredibly hard work and it was wet clay; the clay from the rear was spread around the gardens but the clay from the side of the bungalow required two large skips. I enquired about hiring the skips and at the time they were £117 each but I was informed I needed a permit from our local council to allow the skip to be placed at the roadside; the permit costing £6?
At the time we had a Nissan Micra and it took 72 trips to our local refuse site to dump the clay in the skip on site; I took six large bags up to the site each time and Bron went along each time for the ride. I protected the car with old rugs and the first trip with eight bags had us plane spotting and given the dire roads I was worried about damaging the car so dropped the load to six bags which the Micra handled better.
It gave us immense pleasure to see the council skip wagon bring the skip we had filled back into Huddersfield passing us in the opposite direction as we headed with another full load to the refuse site. I saved the £6 council fee and saved a great deal more by not hiring skips; it cost about £60 for petrol for the Micra. There is absolutely no incentive to better ourselves in the UK because if we try so many people have their hand in our pockets before we even start.Take this one job as an example; the council wanted £6 for doing absolutely nothing. The skip hire company lost hiring two skips which would have caused employment and the council had to pay to transport our clay from the refuse site to a tip. I'll not be beaten by such people.
At the rear of the bungalow the garden and path came to within 4" of the bungalow extension wall so now it is pushed back and the garden retained by a dry stone wall together with two new lots of steps into the garden. I designed everything on paper before starting the work. A new retaining wall in random stone was erected by me to support our neighbours garden and because of the ramp I had to make a bespoke fence; the fence looks excellent and is made of roofing battens to my design. I could go on forever about the jobs we have done but here are a few pictures. All the work has been done by me and Bron with no outside help whatsoever. It's amazing what can be done with hard work and lots of patience and a great deal of money can be saved. I like to encourage others to have a go by starting firstly with a small project.
Kind regards, Col.
[attachment=1168][attachment=1169][attachment=1170][attachment=1171][attachment=1172]
Thanks Alan; you are welcome any time and don't worry it's not a hard hat area. The health and safety lot in this country are now doing more harm than good and are just a joke. When Bron and I visited the chimney manufacturers we parked the car and notices informed us to book in at reception as we were no longer allowed to wander around without an escort; after booking in we were issued with high visibility jackets and had to accompany a staff member as we looked around. This to us is shutting industry down as we will now only visit such places when absolutely necessary. The local scrapyard where I obtained my 3 phase scrap transformer go even further; I've bought a high visibility coat and hard hat for when I visit the site which is no longer often as I can't be bothered with all the safety rules.
Thanks Jamie we don't have a local "Focus" and I'm not surprised they are winding down. The only growth industry around here are fast food outlets and erection of speed cameras.
Well done Jeremy; it's good to hear you are tackling an assortment of jobs around home and hopefully you will become familiar with mortar and plaster as the need arises. I do every repair around home with the exception of our rubbish central heating boiler. At three years old it sprang a leak in the middle of winter when it was freezing cold a couple of years ago. I replaced the pump costing £90 but then it started to pop other leaks and I couldn't keep up with it so after many hours called in British Gas and the engineer was with us three days on the trot trying to get on top of the many problems. This boiler is now the only thing we have insured other than the car; I hate plumbing jobs mid winter!! I too have plenty of work to do in the gardens and have felled a number of large trees over the years we have lived here; it upset me a couple of years ago as I had to ask a tree surgeon to remove the top 40' from one of our trees as the branches were too thin to bear my weight; the tree surgeon brought along his 40' long ladder. Normally I would have simply climbed the tree and done the job myself.
Thanks David; yes the chimney pot was dirt cheap and I took a lot of care to bed it neatly with concrete as it is such a focal point to our bungalow. I agree the TV chassis will have to wait until I can get around to spending time working on it. I can't believe the weather so far this year; we've suffered the worst winter ever recorded but over the last two weeks the weather has been beautiful; cold on a morning but lovely in the afternoons and what a contrast to last year when I must have been having my dinner when summer visited us because I totally missed it. I'm making the most of this gorgeous weather because once it starts to rain it doesn't know when to stop.
I do lots of big jobs around home and all the 34 years I've been married have done at least one big job per year planning the work beforehand. When I retired I decided to make access to our bungalow easier as we have a flight of steps up one side and the other side had nine steps with a sloping path. I decided to get rid of the nine steps; there were three by the garage; three at the end of the path then we would walk along a narrow path to the rear of the bungalow and drop down three steps.
The first year I dug out by hand to the rear of the bungalow creating a new patio area together with a new path; the following year I dug out by hand to the side of the bungalow installing a long ramp. Digging out was incredibly hard work and it was wet clay; the clay from the rear was spread around the gardens but the clay from the side of the bungalow required two large skips. I enquired about hiring the skips and at the time they were £117 each but I was informed I needed a permit from our local council to allow the skip to be placed at the roadside; the permit costing £6?
At the time we had a Nissan Micra and it took 72 trips to our local refuse site to dump the clay in the skip on site; I took six large bags up to the site each time and Bron went along each time for the ride. I protected the car with old rugs and the first trip with eight bags had us plane spotting and given the dire roads I was worried about damaging the car so dropped the load to six bags which the Micra handled better.
It gave us immense pleasure to see the council skip wagon bring the skip we had filled back into Huddersfield passing us in the opposite direction as we headed with another full load to the refuse site. I saved the £6 council fee and saved a great deal more by not hiring skips; it cost about £60 for petrol for the Micra. There is absolutely no incentive to better ourselves in the UK because if we try so many people have their hand in our pockets before we even start.Take this one job as an example; the council wanted £6 for doing absolutely nothing. The skip hire company lost hiring two skips which would have caused employment and the council had to pay to transport our clay from the refuse site to a tip. I'll not be beaten by such people.
At the rear of the bungalow the garden and path came to within 4" of the bungalow extension wall so now it is pushed back and the garden retained by a dry stone wall together with two new lots of steps into the garden. I designed everything on paper before starting the work. A new retaining wall in random stone was erected by me to support our neighbours garden and because of the ramp I had to make a bespoke fence; the fence looks excellent and is made of roofing battens to my design. I could go on forever about the jobs we have done but here are a few pictures. All the work has been done by me and Bron with no outside help whatsoever. It's amazing what can be done with hard work and lots of patience and a great deal of money can be saved. I like to encourage others to have a go by starting firstly with a small project.
Kind regards, Col.
[attachment=1168][attachment=1169][attachment=1170][attachment=1171][attachment=1172]
